The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus equipped with a hard disk device in which image data are stored, an image processing system and an image processing method thereof.
Some of hard disk devices each representing a storage device with a large capacity are equipped with a self-diagnosis function (SMART; Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology), and thereby, it is possible for a high-level device to acquire an internal temperature, a rate of occurrence of reading/writing errors, the number of defective sectors replaced by alternative sectors and information of the number of errors detected by ECC (error correction code).
In the case of digital multifunctional apparatuses equipped with copy functions and printer function for a document, many of them use hard disk devices for preservation of image data and for temporary storage, and thereby, operations of the apparatus are influenced greatly by troubles of the hard disk device.
Therefore, there has been proposed a system wherein failure of a hard disk device is predicted by utilizing the aforesaid self-diagnosis function, and when the occurrence of failure is predicted, the execution of the specific job is prohibited by limiting the function of the apparatus, so that serious situation such as loss of important data may not be brought about (for example, see Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-173743).
In the aforesaid system, if failure of the hard disk device is predicted a user suffers inconvenience terribly even when no troubles are caused actually, because the job relating to the limited functions cannot be executed.